From Paramount/CBS' perspective - was DS9 a financial success?

[toughlittleship]

TV shows are basically about getting the most money for the makers - did DS9 make Paramount money? It was the most expensive show of its day (although I don't know how much Janeway's hair changes cost when they made "Caretaker" two years later and had to refilm entire scenes) and I wonder if Paramount got enough bang for their buck.

[C.E. Evans]

The show lasted for seven years, continued in (second-run) syndication for awhile after it ended, and the DVDs sold well, IIRC. That's really all you can ask for a TV show, especially a syndicated one. Anything extra is just more icing on the cake, IMO.

[MacLeod]

Is suspect the VHS tapes sold well as well, plus how many countries did it sell to?

[JirinPanthosa]

How many TV shows that aired in the 90s are large groups of people still obsessed with?

Star Trek...Simpsons...Seinfeld...

There are a few others people remember and still like, but those are the ones that get quoted randomly by people all the time, the ones people really seem to remember as iconic. The ones where you can name a famous quote from an episode and be reasonably sure everybody will get the reference. And even though the ratings declined sharply in the later seasons it still got high ratings for not being on a major network. I'd say the show has more than paid its bills, especially in the long run.

[Dream]

It was the first or second highest syndicated rated series against other shows while it was airing. So definitely did good.

[Lucky]

I think it did really well for them. Sure, not as well as TNG, but I think they definitely made a good profit from it.

[DS9forever]

There was plenty of DS9 merchandise I'm sure Paramount made a bundle from - VHS and DVD releases (hopefully Blu-ray soon!), novels, behind-the-scenes books, the Technical Manual, comics, computer games, the role playing game, the card game, action figures, soundtracks, models, calendars, watches etc

[BillJ]

I think Paramount made money off the series. But I think the question is: how long has it been since it has drawn in any meaningful cash?

Stations weren't really falling all over each other to run it in strip syndication. I can't remember the last time it ran with any regularity here in the States. Honestly, I don't know what any of this means for a DS9 HD release. Depends on what CBS thinks it can make back in syndication/streaming sales...

[MacLeod]

^yes but if they remaster it for HD, it might sell once again to HD stations who have air time to fill.

[Carcazoid]

Dream wrote:

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It was the first or second highest syndicated rated series against other shows while it was airing. So definitely did good.

That's what I remember reading at the time, but I keep seeing people on here saying that DS9's ratings were in the dumper.

I was beginning to think I was in an alternate timeline or something.

[C.E. Evans]

Carcazoid wrote:

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That's what I remember reading at the time, but I keep seeing people on here saying that DS9's ratings were in the dumper.

I was beginning to think I was in an alternate timeline or something.

DS9's ratings did decline year after year--it just didn't hold onto the huge audience that TNG had. And with VOY--or rather, Jeri Ryan--kind of grabbing the spotlight, DS9 was sort of the forgotten middle child of the Trek franchise at that point in time, IMO.

[LobsterAfternoon]

This thread makes me wonder what kinda profit margins a series should be getting for a mega corporation to be happy.

[Guy Gardener]

How long is a penis?

[LobsterAfternoon]

Varies, as does girth.

[DeepSpaceWine]

C.E. Evans wrote:

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DS9's ratings did decline year after year--it just didn't hold onto the huge audience that TNG had. And with VOY--or rather, Jeri Ryan--kind of grabbing the spotlight, DS9 was sort of the forgotten middle child of the Trek franchise at that point in time, IMO.

DS9 fans have middle child syndrome. "Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!". Only difference was they fared better than the younger sibling (Cindy), just not the older sibling (Marcia).

DS9 during all 7 seasons was either the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd highest-rated non-game show/talk show/court show series in syndication. It had as good ratings as could be asked for from syndicators. Part of the ratings decline was the decline of the syndicated field in general and cable eating away at ratings. For all the griping, DS9 except for like Jan-Feb 1995, always had better ratings than the same Voyager that week with only a few isolated exceptions thereafter. If you take all the ratings and average them for each series, Voyager only averaged 85% of DS9's ratings (range season by season was like 81~87%). Both DS9 & Voyager had a lot of pre-emptions (in fact, in researching that online, I found more complaints about Voyager being pre-empted, usually by hockey or basketball than DS9 being pre-empted. Probably because Wednesday is a popular game night whereas a station with DS9 could schedule it to avoid clashing with most games. Didn't stop some though. The Cubs were greater enemies to DS9 than the Dominion). UPN affiliates were often stations with a lot of sports broadcasts.

Everything came down to the flaw of using TNG as the baseline when it was the exception. TNG had much wider appeal, appeal DS9, Voyager, Enterprise did not have. TNG was one of the biggest hits in syndication history, DS9 was too, but it was a whole magnitude below TNG.